The US Senate has fallen short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict former President Donald Trump on a charge of incitement to insurrection over the Capitol riot on 6 January.
A majority of senators – 57 to 43, including seven Republicans – voted to convict Mr Trump, 10 votes short of the 67 required for conviction.
After his acquittal, Mr Trump released a statement denouncing the trial as “the greatest witch hunt in history”.
If he had been convicted, the Senate could have voted to bar him from running for office ever again.
After the vote, the senior Republican in Congress, Senator Mitch McConnell said Mr Trump had been “responsible” for the assault on the Capitol and called it a “disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty”.
Earlier, he voted against conviction, saying it was unconstitutional now that Mr Trump was no longer president. Mr McConnell was instrumental in delaying Mr Trump’s trial until after he left office, on 20 January.
However, Mr McConnell warned Mr Trump could still be held liable in court.
“He didn’t get away with anything yet. Yet. We have a criminal justice system in this country, we have civil litigation and former presidents are not immune from being [held] accountable by either one,” he said
In their closing statements, the Democratic House of Representatives lawmakers appointed to shepherd the process through the Senate warned that it would be dangerous to acquit Mr Trump.
“The stakes could not be higher because the cold, hard truth is that what happened on 6 January can happen again,” Representative Joe Neguse said.
“History has found us. I ask that you not look the other way,” Representative Madeleine Dean said.
However, Mr Trump’s lawyer, Michael van der Veen, called the proceedings a “show trial” and said the Democrats were “obsessed” with impeaching Mr Trump.
“This impeachment has been a complete charade from beginning to end,” he said. “The entire spectacle has been nothing but the unhinged pursuit of a long-standing political vendetta against Mr Trump by the opposition party.”
Mr Trump himself said no president had “ever gone through anything like it” and that “the movement to Make America Great Again” had “only just begun”.
This is a win for the former president. He is still eligible to run for president again in 2024, if he chooses to do so.